


If Music Be the Food of Love

by schittposting



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff, M/M, Podfic Available, Songfic, open fic night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:54:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21861661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schittposting/pseuds/schittposting
Summary: “Or maybe I won’t play a song at all this time. Maybe I’ll read an original poem.”“Oh my god.” David looks like he’s in physical pain at the idea. “I can’t tell if you’re joking. Please tell me you’re joking.”Rose Apothecary has its second open mic night. Set a few weeks after Singles Week.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose, Stevie Budd & David Rose
Comments: 55
Kudos: 141
Collections: Schitt's Creek Open Fic Night 2.0





	If Music Be the Food of Love

**Author's Note:**

> In honor of the second Open Fic Night, here's a fic about the second open mic night!

Stevie is behind the desk when David walks into the motel lobby. “We’re having another open mic night at the store. Can I have the tape?”

“Uh, sure, I guess,” she says, barely glancing up from her book as she pulls a roll of scotch tape from a drawer.

David takes it and carefully affixes a flyer for the open mic to the wall above the coffee maker. “You should come this time,” He says with forced casualness.

This causes Stevie to set her book down, though she leaves one finger in it, marking her place. “Okay, last time you practically begged me not to come. And now you’re inviting me and putting up flyers. What’s going on?”

“It just... went really well last time. For the store. And I’d, I’d like you to be there this time.”

“You didn’t want me at the last one. You said it was going to be a disaster and I should spare myself.”

“I was just trying to protect you, because I’m a good friend,” he sighs, exasperated. “Anyway, last time, I didn’t realize how much… talent... there is in this town.”

“Yeah,” Stevie says skeptically, opening her book again. “I heard about Bob’s beat poetry. So I’m gonna take that with a grain of salt.”

“Okay, fine. Last time, I wasn’t aware that my boyfriend is an amazing singer.” David tries to say it matter-of-factly, but still gets flushed with pride as he admits it.

Smirking, Stevie marks her place with a motel coaster and sets her book aside. “I heard he serenaded you last time.”

“Seems like you heard a lot of things about last time.”

“Twyla may have shared a few details.”

“Hmm.” David leans on the desk.

“She said you cried.”

“Okay,” David says, drawing back, “I did not _cry_. My eyes may have been watering, but that was because I had allergies.”

“Indoors. At the store.”

“Uh huh, yes,” he nods, avoiding her eyes.

“Funny. I’ve never heard you mention allergies before.”

“I’m a silent sufferer.”

“Twyla also said you two disappeared during her performance,” Stevie says, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m sorry I didn’t want to stick around to hear her a cappella cover of Piano Man.” David cringes at the memory.

“She said when she was done singing, Patrick came out from the stockroom and his face was all red, and he was out of breath when he introduced the next act.” She’s holding back a grin now.

“Wow, I didn’t realize you and Twyla were such good friends.” David says loudly. “Or that she was so observant,” he adds under his breath.

“We talk.”

David rolls his eyes. “Anyway, are you coming or not?”

“I’ve been thinking about what to perform tomorrow night,” Patrick says during a slow moment at the store.

David looks up from the display he’s refilling and smiles over at his boyfriend, standing behind the register. “Yeah?”

“I was thinking about changing it up this time.”

“Okay. Changing it up how, exactly?” He tilts his head, his voice going up apprehensively.

“I don’t know.” Patrick rubs the light stubble on his chin. “Maybe I’ll dig out my old accordion this time. Haven’t played in a while, so I’m kind of rusty.”

“Oh,” David says with a look of horror.

“Or maybe I won’t play a song at all this time. Maybe I’ll read an original poem.”

“Oh my god.” David looks like he’s in physical pain at the idea. “I can’t tell if you’re joking. Please tell me you’re joking.”

Patrick gives David a shit-eating grin. “You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you?”

All afternoon, whenever there’s a lull at the store, Patrick breaks into David’s anxious thoughts by asking questions like what rhymes with “boyfriend” or whether a sonnet is twelve lines or sixteen. By the end of the day, David is refusing to talk to him, though he still kisses Patrick goodnight when they close up.

“I shouldn’t have told you to come,” David says when Stevie shows up the next night.

“Well, that’s a lovely greeting.”

“I advertised this thing so much this time because I thought Patrick was going to sing, and, well.”

Stevie grins. “You’re proud of him.”

David tries to brush it off, but it’s obvious from his face that he is. “But now he says he’s not going to sing, he’s going to, to read an _original sonnet_ or something, and I don’t think he even knows how to write one, and I got all these people to come…” He gestures to the packed room with a look of panic.

“Yikes.”

“Yeah. So. I’m sorry I told you that you should come. This… might be a disaster, and you shouldn’t be here to witness it.”

“Oh, no, I _definitely_ should.”

David glares at Stevie, but still lets her in without paying cover.

“Thank you all for coming out to our second-ever open mic night here at Rose Apothecary,” Patrick says when he steps onstage. “I’ll be your host again this evening. I’m going to start things off in just a moment.” He steps offstage, pulls out a guitar, and starts tuning. David breathes a deep sigh of relief. No poetry tonight, then. Patrick catches David’s look of relief and gives him a cheeky wink. Jerk.

Patrick doesn’t go overboard with the song dedication this time. “This song is for David,” he says simply, before he begins to play. Last time, David thinks, Patrick made a big deal of dedicating the song to him because of how anxious David was feeling about being serenaded. Patrick loves to tease him, to wind him up, but, he realizes, every time Patrick plays on his anxieties, he ends up showing him just how unfounded those fears were.

The dedication isn’t even necessary, though. Because with the look Patrick gives him when he starts singing, so full of fondness, it’s obvious, to David and probably to everyone else in the room, that the song is for him.

_I was so lost, didn’t know what to do with myself_  
_I was my own worst enemy, I was lost, and oh, I needed help_  
_Then you came along and saw the state I was in_  
_You picked me up when I was down, showed me how to live again_

David thinks of their first kiss, in Patrick’s car on his birthday, when Patrick admitted he’d never kissed a guy before. Of the next day, when he told David their kiss had made him feel all the things he was supposed to feel. He thinks about when he found out about Rachel, how Patrick told him he’d never felt right before, that David made him feel right. And after, when they’d finally talked about their pasts, and Patrick opened up to him about how lost he’d been all those years, not knowing such a big part of who he was, and how David had changed all that.

He thinks about the first time Patrick told him he loved him. And then Patrick gets to the chorus, and he’s singing it to him.

_This is precious love, it’s precious love_  
_No, I can’t let it go_  
_This is precious love, and it’s teaching me_  
_Everything I need to know_

They’ve taught each other so much over the last several months. David has taught Patrick how being with a man could make him feel, how a relationship is supposed to feel, when your heart is truly in it. And Patrick has taught David, well. So much. How to be vulnerable, to break down the walls he’s spent years building up, how to trust someone with his heart. How to love. David loves him. He’s even gotten used to saying it, these past few weeks. Every time Patrick says it to him, it gets a little easier to say it back. And now Patrick is singing it to him, over and over and over.

_It’s love, love, love, love, love, precious love_

David is crying, and Stevie is giving him a look that says she knows it’s not allergies, but it’s a kind look, and he can’t quite tell since his vision is blurred with tears, but she might be crying a little, too. Because, for all that Stevie pretends not to care about anyone, she does. She cares about David, and wants him to be happy, and she sees how happy Patrick makes him.

“So I say thank you,” Patrick sings, gazing at David with the same tenderness and sincerity in his eyes that had been there when said those same words after their first kiss. “I’m a lucky man.”

David is the lucky one, though, he thinks as he looks back at Patrick. He’s so lucky to have this sweet, caring, patient man in his life. This man who isn’t afraid to stand here, in front of the whole town, in the store they built together, and declare his love. To say he loves him, loves David Rose, even with all his flaws, his selfishness, how high maintenance he is. He loves David. All of him. And David, who thought he’d never find love like this, love like in the movies, the kind of love that makes people stupid and saccharine, the kind of love he always used to pretend he was too cynical to want, David loves Patrick. And he doesn’t know what he did to get this lucky.

Patrick introduces the next performer and makes his way over to the counter where David is standing. As soon as he’s within reach, David takes his hand and pulls him into the stockroom, drawing the curtain closed behind them. And Patrick’s face is flushed when he goes back to the stage, and he’s a little breathless when he introduces the next performer, and David doesn’t care who notices.

**Author's Note:**

> The song Patrick sings is, of course, Precious Love by James Morrison. Even though it was in a pre-Patrick episode of the show, the lyrics fit so well for Patrick that I thought it would be a perfect song for him to sing to David. Plus I would LOVE to hear Noah cover this song.
> 
> Thank you to my beta reader, Timmers!
> 
> Follow us on ~~tweeters~~ [tumblr](https://schittposting.tumblr.com/)!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] If Music Be the Food of Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23266774) by [schittposting](https://archiveofourown.org/users/schittposting/pseuds/schittposting)




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